Achieving cost savings, compliance and sustainability in medical devices

In 2015, a global medical device manufacturer with a 120-year history and an expanding international footprint enlisted JLL’s support to manage real estate transactions across its growing portfolio. In the years since, this partnership has evolved to include a facilities management program focused on standardizing best practices and reducing costs.

In partnering with JLL, the company's real estate and facilities teams have successfully navigated various challenges to support the organization’s core strategy of improving patient outcomes, reducing the cost of care, expanding access and enhancing the operations of its customers around the world.

As the organization continues to grow its global footprint and integrate newly acquired companies, they found that managing numerous office, research and development (R&D), manufacturing and distribution facilities has become increasingly complex. Meanwhile, the company also faces market pressure to lower costs, improve compliance and advance sustainability goals.

To address the real estate challenges associated with its growth, the organization partnered with JLL to create a “One Team” approach across disparate business units, locations and departments. This approach by JLL includes:

• Advising the firm on transactions totaling more than 4 million square feet and 90 acres in North America, as well as more than 1.6 million square feet throughout the rest of the world.

• Assistance in managing the company’s expanding real estate portfolio by conducting consulting studies to determine where it makes sense to consolidate locations or locate new manufacturing facilities.

• Amid intense demand for high-quality research space and amenity-rich workplaces, JLL’s relationships with landlords have helped this partner secure space and achieve favorable pricing in competitive life sciences markets including Silicon Valley and San Diego.

“The five-year IFM partnership with JLL has driven continuous improvement in safety, cost effectiveness and consistent performance throughout the company’s facilities, with total savings to date approaching $10.6 million.”

In 2017, the company’s successful Transaction Management partnership with JLL led to an integrated facilities management (IFM) program focused on centralizing its facilities management operations. With each business unit previously managing its own sites and budget, JLL assisted in implementing best practices, processes and standard operating procedures throughout the portfolio. The JLL IFM team now manages more than 16.7 million square feet across nearly 50 of the company’s sites in the U.S., Mexico, Latin America and the APAC region.

The centralized IFM platform has enabled the company to:

• Unify and standardize reporting practices, delivering tremendous value. In particular, “single plane of glass” dashboards that provide access to performance metrics for every site in the company’s portfolio have been a game changer. From work order data and budget forecasting to safety and compliance training, the dashboards allow executives to review, analyze and compare performance across different sites. This helps the company achieve savings in areas that don’t impact its core business, unlocking the opportunity to invest more capital in research and development and to fuel ongoing growth.

• Launch a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) program to drive savings, identify capital projects and implement equipment performance improvements. The RCM approach is also helping JLL’s partner advance sustainability goals, such as fully phasing out R22 refrigerant from its facilities by 2028. To help achieve this goal, JLL has developed a master tracker to assess equipment condition and replace units based on key criticality factors. As of spring 2022, the project is roughly 65% complete. Additionally, the IFM team uses high-tech tools like the Fluke ii900 Acoustic Imager, which shows the team where pieces of critical equipment may be leaking compressed air, to achieve energy and cost savings.

Finally, from a safety and compliance standpoint, injury rates consistently fall below both company targets and the industry average. Since implementing the SafeStart™ behavioral-based safety program, 13,612 “Good Catches” have been submitted, allowing the organization and JLL to identify and resolve thousands of near-miss incidents.

As this leader in medical devices and diagnostics continues on its path of growth, innovation and evolution, executives are exploring new ways to consolidate lab facilities and future-proof its workplaces for tomorrow’s talent. With recently extended contracts, JLL will continue to provide support as “One Team” across departments and locations, helping the company centralize activities across its expanding real estate portfolio.

Looking to centralize your real estate transactions or facilities management? Learn more about how JLL can help by contacting us directly here.